toast and tea

"Bread and water can so easily be toast and tea"

- Tea box in Jahlia's cupboard

So much has happened since my last check in. I have a feeling that every entry could easily start with that sentence, though to our credit Internet access has been limited (but we're grateful for that too).

After a warm send off from our West County cohorts we packed and tidied the house one last time, managed to get two hrs of sleep and were up before sunrise to catch the 4:30 am airport shuttle. This is the point in our story where I started to feel that something was really happening, I mean, subletters are moving in and we are moving out and won't be back until August.

Two sunrises, a chicken salad, one bag of pretzels, a banana, one cramped leg, a kinked neck, and two complementary hand towels later, it's time for continental breakfast 30,000 ft. above Ireland and one hour till landing.

Somehow in our daze we made our way towards my friends Jahlia and David's flat on the upper east side of London. We followed their instructions left behind on our cozy bed and slept for most of the day. By the time they returned from work we were refreshed and ready for our first ever round of "quiz night at the pub, very British".

We proceeded to watch in awe as our new friend and team leader Elliot blazed through round after round of questions with the competitive spirit of an Olympian. We chimed in when we could with answers like, "Avatar, and Tony Blair" but being generally out of the loop of U.S. pop culture and even less tapped into Brittan's, (I should just speak for my self here…) I wasn't much help. We were both impressed by the amount of work the MC had put into all the questions, many involving sound clips, not to mention the photo round. We were equally impressed by the fervor with which teams gathered and worked to win. (Winning team takes home the pot by the way.) In the end, we went home with a box of chocolates for "best team name" which will remain omitted from this entry; I'll only say that Elliot was sure he, "understands the inner workings of our judge's mind", and indeed he did.

The following day we walk around small streets and some big ones too exploring nooks and crannies, taking it all in through our jet lagged daze. Then we packed our bare essentials; our sense of humor and our sense of wonder and made it through London's rush hour to our bus station heading towards our first farm. On the bus we watched from the window as cafés and apartments transformed into small houses with cars parked out front, then larger houses with garages slowly opened up into fields, an enormous quilt of green wheat and yellow mustard all around us. Soon the houses were few and far between and stone church steeples were peeking through thick hedgerows. We were heading northwest to Cheshire (as in Cat). It's almost as if we've gone back in time because sprig is just springing in the UK, I feel so lucky to have two springs in one year. 5hrs and one short train ride later we were met at the station by Pam our first wwoof host.

We knew right away from her warm smile that we were in good hands. Pam is in her early 60's, tall, thin, and very strong. Back at the ranch she introduced us to her very sweet sister C (for Celia) who spends half of each month in London and the other half running back and forth between the garden and the kitchen at Yarangal Green Farm making Yarengal Family Jam. They're both artists, and needless to say, full of vigor.

Their family has lived on the property for two generations. The oldest part of the farmhouse dates back to the 1,500's, with beautiful thick wooden beams running across the low sealing in what is now the living room but was once a traditional Welsh longhouse. "Bits and pieces" have been added on throughout the years (including the 1970's kitchen wallpaper) transforming the house into a living historical document. We spent the next four days "mucking about" their place, fixing a gate, weeding the onion bed, building a few steps, mulching, and making Damson jam. In the evenings we would all get together for a traditional British starch-filled supper and talk about art, politics, and mostly the environment. Their farm was on the Sandstone Trail and they run a small B&B where they host "walkers" over night. We had a chance to explore a little and walked through their "woodlnd" (a nature preserve they're restoring with a government grant) for a view of the Welsh hills. Except for the cold nights we were lucky to have "lovely weather", but before we know it, it was time to head off to The Hatch in Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire (as in sauce).

We recognized Ben straight away from the photo of him we saw on The Hatch web site; strawberry Blond hair, huge blue eyes and big smile. We hopped into his very yellow van, pushed aside some baby toys, children's books and a guitar to make room for our bags and were off to the Pub for a gig. In this band (one of many he's a part of) Ben plays rhythm guitar backing up a 22 year-old Django-like virtuoso, "Brilliant!" Ben is also a drummer and a painter, a real Renaissance man much like the one I'm traveling with. In the van we wolfed down generous portions of a delicious onion quiche still warm from the oven which Ben's wife Nada had made- our first clue that she, like Ben, was a total Rock Star. After the wonderful show in the very-old Pub where they brew their own beers called, "This", "That", and "T'other" we were off to The Hatch where the lights were all out and it was way past bedtime. We crawled into our lovely warm bed in our spacious room at the top of the stairs and were off to dream land feeling right at home though we'd just arrived.

In the morning (bright and early) redheaded and rosy-cheeked 3-year-old Romy rousted us out of bed eager to make new friends. And so began our time at The Hatch…..

http://www.thehatchworkshop.co.uk/Welcome.html

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&tab=wl

P30

There must be some old-timers here? There must by the guy with piles of inventory stacked in his yard for just-in-case and just-because. There must be that guy who remembers when, way back when he was a kid, before this stop light was put in, folks would just pull over, "there yes, just over there" onto the gravel and buy fruit from the Mexican woman. But now it's a Pub or a bike shop it's funky and fun and thank God it's not Starbucks. The feeling is so new. This is the heart of the matter. In search of the plain-old-used-to-be.

Where is the heart of the matter?

Basket weaver, arrowhead carver, salmon smoker, pellet hunter, big tree logger, paper maker, hop picker, blueberry fingers, apple farmer, pie baker, farrier.

Keyboard tapper, night club dancer, boots and feathers, fedora hats, micro-brew drinker, bicycle rider cycling through an ocean of 30.

(When I'm in the garden with soil under my nails I find the Old-timers there, I thank the Old-timers there.)

On the highway looking out the window I catch myself thinking again and again, imagine what it looked like before... even before that, you know, way back....

It's the part of me that's always homesick for "the homeland we've never seen".

Homesickness, maybe that's what really killed off the Old-timers? Another one down with a bad case of the "homesick-blues". More likely though I just need to look around, Old- timers are everywhere and always in the making.

101 to 5 to Eugene to Portland

By the time the car was all packed and the house was was all put away and spic and span for the subletters it was 4:45am. In other words, it was time for bed. We set the alarm (ambitious) for 6 and cursed it when it rang. We said fair well to our dear Hardcore Coffee and were on the road just in time for Santa Rosa's morning traffic. We decided to take the 101 rather than hwy 5 for the first leg of our journey- less traffic moving North in the morning and not much of a time difference after all. The windy road cuts through N. California's rolling hills and my red eyes were forced to stay open by the lupins and poppies shouting out "it's spring!"

Further north the majestic redwoods in the misty morning fog opened up into brackish lagoons where herds of Roosevelt elk first stopped my breath and second made me hungry for lunch. Ryan spotted a sign for smoked salmon from a mile away and our bear instincts took over. The Native American woman behind the counter preformed an ancient Salmon Sampling ritual we were honored to take part in. God-bless you Salmon! We were revived and back on the road our eyes feasting on the beautiful curves of the Smith river.

About an hour outside of Eugene Or. the exhausted part of my brain finally spoke up and gave the excited part of my brain a good talking to. We found the world famous Pizza Research Institute and then the eccono lodge and that's all I remember from that night.

In the morning we were sad to learn that Breightenbush Hot Springs was full for day-use but had a chance to check out Eugene's beautiful Saturday Morning Market and found some more goodies for the road.

We took our time getting up to Portland checking out smaller roads that wound their way through blueberry farms and fields of trellised hops. We stopped in a state park on the Willamette river and watched the ferry shuttle cars across. A couple of old men built a small fire on the river bank and were relaxing in their fold out chairs fishing the afternoon away. We ate our smoked salmon and hard-boiled eggs like teddy bears on a picnic. Ryan stacked rocks paying homage to the Willamette and we were on the road to Portland.

5 Days Till Take Off

I never thought the day would come when I would find myself Blogging. Who know? But thanks to the encouragement of dear friends and a little shift in attitude, here I go...

Terms and Conditions:
A: I don't plan to do this every day, just whenever I feel like it.
B: I will do my best to get Ryan on board.
C: I'm dyslexic and owe my life to spell check. That being said, you will surely find straggling errors throughout (as no one has yet invented a dyslexic-check). I hope you will find this an endearing quality.

For those of you who haven't gotten the full story behind our trip and think we're just slacking-off for 3 months here's the deal: We're thinking of it like a sandwich. The US is the bread- sprouted bread- full of questions about where we would like to live.

Dear Sebastopol,

We love you, we adore you. Please know it's not you it's us. We need to explore the world before we can truly commit. Please know we will always love you and cherish our time together. We trust that if it was meant to be we will return with a renewed commitment to building our life with you.

Yours sincerely, Liat & Ryan

Our plan is to leave on Fri the 23ed of April at 4:oo am. That's right, am. We hope to make it up to Breitenbush hot springs in the early afternoon, soak until our fingers and toes look like raisins and camp for the night. One of our informants adamantly explained that if we didn't go to Breitenbush we would be missing out on the experience of a lifetime and who could argue with that. We'll be heading up to Portland the next day and from there to Bellingham WA, and the surrounding area.

The meat of the sandwich is our time working and traveling abroad. We'll be in the UK, briefly in Amsterdam, Northern Italy and Israel. Then it's off the complete the sandwich with NY, New England, and lovely Wisconsin before returning to our dear Burnside Rd. While we're in the UK and Italy we'll be WWOOFing it- World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. We'll be staying with families and helping out with their projects in exchange for room, board, and the local experience generally cloaked from the average tourismo. So far we've connected with 7 farms who are anxiously awaiting our arrival.

The Farms we're looking at for the most part run small scale projects along side their food or herb production. Seeing small agriculturally based businesses is at the heart of the matter for us. We're curious about how to sculpt a life that combines all of our passions in a sustainable way and hope that meeting like minded folks will help us to focus our vision. Details to follow.

In between exploring the US and WWOOFing-it we'll be paying respects to our respective ancestral homelands visiting Scotland and Israel. The last time I was in Israel I was 16, and though I was in Scotland with my Grandmother for the 1997 Edinburgh Theater Festival, I can't say that I've ever made it to Douglas Castle. I guess you could call this the pilgrimage part of our journey- or the condiments, bringing it all together.

We are filled with gratitude to have this opportunity and thank you for joining us, albeit virtually, on this adventure. Having the support of our family and friends enables us to leap fearlessly (though for my part, not without a healthy dose of anxiety). We'll keep you posted.

Peace and Love, Liat